The Elevation of the Cross (La elevación de la cruz)

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New Acquisition: Antonio de Torres, The Elevation of the Cross (Elevación de la cruz)

April 25, 2019

Bold and daring, this canvas is arguably one of Antonio de Torres’s masterpieces. Torres was one of Mexico’s leading painters of the early eighteenth century. He created an extraordinary number of works for the wealthy mining towns of San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas, in north-central Mexico. Part of his set of the via Crucis (Way of the Cross), this painting was originally commissioned by the Franciscan convent church of San Luis Potosí—one of the largest and most opulent in all of New Spain.

The Elevation of the Cross (La elevación de la cruz)

Antonio de Torres (Mexico, 1667-1731)

Mexico, 1718

Paintings

Oil on canvas

Unframed: 66 15/16 × 83 1/16 in. (170 × 211 cm); framed: 73 3/4 × 90 3/8 × 2 in. (187.33 × 229.55 × 5.08 cm)

Gift of the 2016 Collectors Committee, with additional funds provided by Kelvin Davis (M.2016.149)

Latin American Art

Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

Provenance

Templo de San Francisco de Asís, San Luis Potosí, Mexico, 1718; Joaquín Arguinzoniz y Díez Gutiérrez (1845–1911), San Luis Potosí, 1903 (property shipped to Durango, Spain, c....

Templo de San Francisco de Asís, San Luis Potosí, Mexico, 1718; Joaquín Arguinzoniz y Díez Gutiérrez (1845–1911), San Luis Potosí, 1903 (property shipped to Durango, Spain, c. 1914); by inheritance to Antonio Manuel Arguinzoniz Garay Artabe (b. 1852, Durango) and María del Carmen Arguinzoniz y Olalde (1886–1971, Bilbao, Spain); by inheritance to her daughter María Begoña Díaz de Mendívil Arguinzoniz (1923– 2015, b. Vitoria, Spain, d. Madrid); Caylus Anticuario SA, Madrid, 2015; LACMA, 2016.

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Label

Antonio de Torres was a prolific painter who fulfilled commissions for various orders and was closely affiliated with the Franciscans.

...

Antonio de Torres was a prolific painter who fulfilled commissions for various orders and was closely affiliated with the Franciscans. He created this monumental painting as part of a Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) series for the Franciscan convent of San Luis Potosí, Mexico. By spotlighting Christ’s and the Virgin’s faces and blending the paint to a high finish (in contrast to the more impressionistic brushstrokes employed for most of the figures), Torres cleverly emphasized their shared sorrow and effectively connected them in the viewer’s eye and imagination.

From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entry by Ilona Katzew in the accompanying publication, cat. no. 7, pp. 54–57)

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Bibliography

Katzew, Ilona, ed. Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2017.

Katzew, Ilona, ed. Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Mexico City: Fomento Cultural Banamex; New York: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2017.
Katzew, Ilona, ed. Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/D.A.P., 2022.
Ilona Katew, “New Acquisition: Antonio de Torres, The Elevation of the Cross (Elevación de la cruz),” Unframed, April 25, 2016, https://unframed.lacma.org/2016/04/25/new-acquisition-antonio-de-torres-elevation-cross-elevación-de-la-cruz.
Joseph Fronek, Ilona Katzew, “Antonio de Torres’s The Elevation of the Cross: History and Conservation,” June 18, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU8m_T6X170.

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Exhibition history

Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 19, 2017 - March 18, 2018
Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici New York, NY, Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 24, 2018 - July 22, 2018

Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 19, 2017 - March 18, 2018
Painted in Mexico, 1700–1790: Pinxit Mexici New York, NY, Metropolitan Museum of Art, April 24, 2018 - July 22, 2018
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 Nashville, TN, Frist Art Museum, October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024

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